ChriSpace

3 years!

I just realized I have been blogging for the past 3 years!  Well it was quite a long time isn't it?  Some of my friends just started blogging.  Am I consider a pioneer in blogging then?

Anyways, lots of changes happened in my life.  When I started blogging here, I was still searching for a full-time job in the bay-area since the economy wasn't good in '03.  I was playing Final Fantasy XI MMORPG day and night :) 

Then of course, I got a job at TechExcel and worked there for over 2 years.  Lots of professional experiences and I got to travel throughout U.S. and Canada quite a bit.  During those 2.5 years, I moved out from parents' place and lived in Walnut Creek and had my own apartment the first time in my life!  It was a very nice place, except the parking was terrible :(

Then I got my Acura.  Then I moved to Milpitas to my friend Patrick's. 
We had lots of fun and he's quite a good housemate.  And then I changed church
. And then I quite my U.S. job and moved back to Hong Kong in March this year.  Now I
am into my 2nd job in HK.  Wow, what a life.  Maybe some of you think it's no big deal, but there are simply too many things happened for me!

Can't believe I am still blogging here.  Life goes on after 3 years, blog still goes on.  And I am always the same Chris you know :-)

Possessions

While I was unpacking my baggages today at my new flat, I realized I do have lots of things I need to unpack and tidy up.  However, this amount is only a very small portion of what I have left in California.  Books, CDs, clothes...most of them are sitting at my parent's place in Sunnyvale, untouched.  Here, I buy new books and CDs and clothes and I live fine without my stuff in USA. 

So, possessions are not very important in life, at least to me.  This is more true when I get older.  When I was younger, stuff are important to me because it gives me a kind of identity.  But when I get older I don't need things to boast my own worth.  Rather, the things you have done, the friends you make, the people you helped - just to name a few, shape who you are.  The more important things are, of course, family, friendships and relationship - those which deal with people are important in my life.   The old and new friends I have met in HK, I enjoy every moment with them having fun and chatting.  It has been great.  Without coming back, I will not be able to meet and talk to them.

I am continuing my unpacking......

Deep thoughts? Not really

I have been reading a lot of blogs from a lot of people.  I realized that many people are quite intellectual.  They like to write about a certain topic and analyze it scrutinize it looking at it from different angle.  I envy these people's ways of thinking in a deeper way.

My readers usually do not find my blog to be deep in nature.

Instead, I try to put random thoughts and things I see daily and post it here for sharing.  Sometimes, even myself question about the stuff I talk about: are they shallow? do they make sense? will the materials on my blog offend anyone?  Then, I realize this is exactly the beauty of blogs - everyone write about different things from different angles with different cultures and different levels of complexities.  That's how we can share thoughts and enrich/educate one another.

I tend to look at it in a positive way.

It's good to be able to blog.

Visiting the Pandas

No, I didn't go to the zoo.  I am talking about going to a mall where it uses Panda as the theme :)

Today I had a late luncheon with Mr. Emerson at an American restaurant inside a hotel in Tsuen Wan.  He was my career counsellor during my highschool years.  Mr Emerson always keeps himself busy by having various gatherings and activities in Hong Kong.  Although he is already retired, he is always full of energy when talking.  Mr Emerson is 100% American, but he is very interested in HK history and has live in HK for more years than my age, probably :)  He has a lot of interesting stories to tell: what kind of people he met, the things he saw, the histories of people, how this person get connected to that person....for example, Mr Emerson got so lucky to go to the premiere of movie 'Isabella' and saw Chief Tsang and singers and movie stars.  Mr Emerson also showed me a lot of pictures with old boys from my highschool.  We ended up chatting for about 2 hours. 

The outside of the Panda Hotel - is that supposed to be the chimney!?

One of the decorations inside the mall of the hotel.  Notice the girl at the back - i didn't see her until i saw this picture

A park close by.  It is interesting to see a traditional Chinese park among the high-rises.

The Fat Angelo we went to.  I had 3 big glasses of ice-tea since they've free refill.  Good~~~~

my lovely grandma

A video clip featuring my 93 year old grandma in HK.  Special appearances thanks to 5-suk, 5-sum and the voice of my cousin heidi :)

 

我亞嫲一路都以為我係我老豆,好感觸敢一邊擰擰頭一邊有淚水從眼角流出.後來知道係個孫黎既時候個人當堂寬容晒。

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Lan Kwai Fong '05

Here is the clip I took at HK Lan Kwai Fong during my trip in October '05.  Just look at the crowd...there is really not much to do there but people just keep coming...

new website for primary school

I recently stumbled across the new website of my primary school in Hong Kong.  It was a very well-designed website.  Most exciting of all is that I can now find my primary 6 schoolmates because the site allows all of us to register our email addresses and personal info.  When I am browsing the names of my classmates, it gives me a nostalgic feeling.  Afterall I have not seen many of my schoolmates for more than 17 years.  I have already got contacted with an oldboy.  I am hoping I will be able to get back in touch with more of them.  It will be interesting and exciting to get in touch with them again.  The thoughts of it gets me excited.

Rangeela show in college days

I was checking my school's website today and one of the articles it featured on the frontpage is the annual international student show called Rangeela.  I remembered when I was a freshman, that year was the first year this international show debuted.  An Engyptian classmate proposed the idea and involved almost everyone in the international student community at Calvin College.  The result is heightened awareness of international students on campus.

I remembered the show itself and the practice times are fun times, but I wasn't too engaged in the show as an individual.  Partly because I was shy, partly because I wasn't that interested in performing in front of a big crowd.  I remembered singing a mandarin song, did a Chinese skit, and wearing some traditional Chinese costumes.  One year I helped out in the backstage as well.  The most vivid thing I remembered was that everyone were so involved with their acts - the Indonesians, the Africans, the Koreans, even the Canadians (they are considered as international student at Calvin). 

This year's Rangeela will have 2 shows again and is almost sold out.  Sometimes I feel the stuff we do are such basic cultural stuff that people should have seen before.  But there are many people in the mid-west who has never even talk to another asian person during their lifetime.  They can't even differentiate between Japan, Chinese and Korean cultures.  It is important for them to understand other cultures instead of enclosing themselves in an isolated way.  Not to ask them to appreciate our culture, but let them be aware of the differences of their own culture versus others'.  Being born in Hong Kong, I am not very aware of multicultural issues because HK society is 99% chinese-cantonese.  But after a few years of Rangeela participation during college years, I am much more sensitive to culture and customs from other parts of the world.  It is useful for myself as I live and work in the bay-area, because people from different parts of the world come here to make a living.   Having a little background of where they are from and their cultures go a long way. 

familiar face

Tonight while watching TV, I saw a familiar face.  This piece of news was about copyright materials in Hong Kong.  The report was interviewing various people who sell legal movies, software, games etc.  They were complaining how badly their sales were being affected by the downloading of games and movies from the web.  Then I saw someone.

A woman, around middle-aged, appeared on screen.  She was the seller of a video game shop.  And she was saying how her sales were so being affected.  I instinctively recognized her face.  This woman, although I do not know her name, was the owner of a TV game shop in Shum Shui Po in HK.  Why do I know this person?  Because when I was still in primary school in HK, I used to sell a lot of my played video game catridges to her!!

I never would have imagined I would see her on TV.  And of course I would never ever imagine her shop is still around and it looks like the shop is still in Shum Sui Po.  If I counted correctly, this woman and her shop has been there for the past 15 years at least!  Her face does not change at all, that is why I recognized her immediately. 

I remembered when I was little, I sold so many played TV games to this shop.  This woman was always there, trying to persuade me to sell my games.  Every time, I sold everything to her with dirt cheap prices.  It was very stupid on my part when I think back.  I think she always recognized this stupid kid so everytime she would use a rock bottom price to buy my game catridges.  Because of my great interest in obtaining the latest of games, and because I did not have enough pocket $$ at that time, I needed to sell my existing ones in order to have enough $$ to buy the new ones.  No, I don't hate her.  I think it is too many years ago to have any hatred.  And besides, it was my own stupidity and my trusting of people which are the faults.  I think if she is doing legal business and still serving HK people, then it is fine.

It definitely bring back that oldie feeling.